Spoiled Little Daddy's Girl

I am a spoiled snot-nosed daddy’s girl. Well, not literally, but I'll explain. I knew a girl who once got a sports car along with her driver’s permit. She thought she was entitled to it and she didn’t truly understand the freedom and blessing that came with the car. So she didn’t bother to learn how to operate the vehicle, or abide by the traffic laws or how to maneuver the city streets.

Within months she wrecked the car. It wasn’t totaled, but this justified her father into purchasing a newer and better vehicle. He bought her an SUV in order to make her safer and to place every other St. Paul driver in greater danger. She wrecked the SUV shortly after. This trend continued until she graduated high school and I never heard a word about her again. Even though she never learned how to drive and she abused the gifts she was given, her privilege of the freedom found within an automobile was never questioned.

I thought this girl was ridiculous and that she made a fool of her parents who continued to give to her in spite of her arrogance and ignorance. She knew what a car was and that she had one, but had no idea how to use that gift and what responsibilities it demanded from her.

Here I am, years older, and I am just now realizing how much I have in common with that girl. God has poured out abundant grace on me. He has pulled me from my path of destruction and given me the greatest fathomable gift: life with Him. I know that I have His compassion and grace and I can tell you what that means, but I have neglected to learn and deepen my understanding of that grace. I have taken it for granted. I have wrecked it repeatedly, but yet He gives even more.

I have understood grace with my mind, but not with my heart. If you want to know if someone understands grace in their mind, simply ask them what it means and you can know by their answer. If you want to know if someone understands grace in their heart, observe them. Their actions will show their understanding. How do they respond to sin? How do they respond to the grace they claim to know?

Do they repent, but still find themselves drawn in their previous sin which grace has wiped clean? If they do, they don’t have a deep enough understanding of grace in their heart.

I remember the first time I read Romans 6 about four years ago. I thought Paul was stating obvious facts and I wasn’t appropriately moved by what I read. Of course, we shouldn’t sin just because we are under grace! But Paul understood me better than I did. He was getting at something much deeper than an intellectual acknowledgement of grace and sin. He knew that the heart was more difficult to teach than the mind.

I have abused God’s grace with frightening alacrity. I have spit upon the gifts he has poured upon me. My actions prove that I don’t understand grace the way I should, because my response has not been to love God in gratitude. My response has been to take that grace and celebrate my freedom by abusing it, much in the same way the teenage girl did with the cars her dad gave her.

But God is not some wealthy neglectful father. He wants us to understand His gift and He has given us His word for that purpose. He wants us to use that gift in a way that others will see and then turn to Him for the same gift. Our actions will evidence our understanding of grace and sin, and my actions have indicted me.